


Lead, Kindly Light

by whatthedubbs



Series: Poetry of the Moon's Light [1]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: An attempted punch in the feels, Imprisonment, Inspired by music by a gay pacifist, M/M, Memories, POV Alternating, Runaan gets to keep his arm, because magic that's why - Freeform, contains elements from a numberr of other works, if there is a fear of coins Runaan has it now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthedubbs/pseuds/whatthedubbs
Summary: Even locked away in his cage of metal, the warmth of Ethari’s callused palms upon his skin centers his mind.
Relationships: Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Series: Poetry of the Moon's Light [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560703
Comments: 10
Kudos: 182





	Lead, Kindly Light

_Lead, kindly Light, amid th'encircling gloom;_   
_Lead thou me on!_   
_The night is dark, and I am far from home;_   
_Lead thou me on!_   
_Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see_   
_The distant scene--one step enough for me._

* * *

Even locked away in his cage of metal, the warmth of Ethari’s callused palms upon his skin centers his mind. Even the memory of his beloved touch stirs his self against the torpor and numbness of the passing days. The thought of his soft smile blooms inside his mind like the gentle light of the moon against his skin.

The night of their first meeting was graced by such a moon; hung high in the halls of the stars the night he returned to Silvergrove at the end of his apprenticeship. Runaan had bared himself to her light among the trees that gave his home its name; before the crafter who would forge his first blades to align with the flow of her power through his body.

And when it was done, he knelt naked in the soft earth and grass between the ancient trunks, feeling the flow of the moon’s power under his skin; the gentle caress of the night breeze over the tips of his ears and under the curve of his chin. An intimate moment between himself and the world around him until a soft voice spoke out from the susurrus of the night bidding to rise, for the reading was complete.

And so he rose, and turned towards where the voice had spoken from and forgot about the moon above, for she paled in comparison to the elf who stood before him… 

He has no body in this terrible prison, but remembers with aching clarity the way his heart kicks in his chest whenever the memory of that night rises to the surface of his mind.

(Oh his heart; he misses the beat of it under his breast. An assassin is dead and should not be so attached, but his self feels empty without the rhythms of his body).

Dimly he is aware of the dull clinking around his prison; Lain and Tiadrin’s metal cages (he refuses to _think_ the word _coffins_ ) shifting against his own. The heart he does not have breaks for their shared daughter; so strong and yet so _alone_ in the kingdoms of humans. He wishes now that Ethari had succeeded in his efforts to keep her away from this assignment. Wishes he had left her home in the arms of his husband. At least then neither of them would be mourning his passing alone. 

(He knows that his flower has sunk beneath the waters of the village fountain; just as Rayla’s parents’ flowers had. The sorrow he holds within him for the pain his husband must feel is a bulwark against the confinement that pries at his very soul).

Another memory stirs itself up from the turmoil of his consciousness, and he gratefully allows it to rise and embrace him. The memory of Ethari’s warm and callused hands braces his self against the cold of the metal; and once more he is twenty years in the past, standing bare and suddenly self-conscious before the most beautiful elf he has ever seen. The phantom of the brush of Ethari’s fingers over his own as the crafter hands him his simple tunic is just as electrifying as it was the first time. 

* * *

_I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that thou_   
_Shouldst lead me on._   
_I loved to choose and see my path; but now,_   
_Lead thou me on!_   
_I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,_   
_Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years._

* * *

Ethari holds his husband and his best friends in the palm of his hands and does his best not to collapse to the floor and weep. Around him the murmurings of humans and elves alike fade into a dull roar in the distance. He feels gentle hands catch him as he sways upon his feet; lets whoever it is guide him down onto a chair. He does not see them; so focused is he upon the lives he holds in his grasp. 

(Before today Ethari had occasionally wished he could tuck his dearest friends away in his shirt pocket to keep them safe and close. He does not know if he will be able to live with this wish now that it has come true).

Small hands slip around his own and slim fingers grip gently around the bowl of them that holds the pieces of his heart. His daughter’s voice wraps around him, soothing; sharing in his sorrow. These are pieces of her own heart as well; locked away by vile magic in cages of metal. Ethari can _feel_ how insidious and _loathsome_ that power is. Even confined to his hands it makes him feel unclean and violated. 

(Ethari ties very hard not to imagine what his husband and heart-sister and brother must have felt as that power washed over them and bound them to such small prisons. He doubts he will sleep well ever again).

 _Runaan, my heart. Can you feel my hands? Do you know I am here?_ He closes his hand ever so gently around the stolen pieces of his heart. Rayla’s fingers close over his own, warm and comforting and familiar but not enough to fill the hole in his chest. He does not bother trying to hold back the tears that fall upon their hands.

(He hopes that this is not the only way that he will ever hold Runaan again. Has to hope or risk breaking open under the weight of it all. His shoulders ache for the embrace of his husband’s strong arms, his skin is cold with the absence of his touch. His ears duller for the lack of his heart-sister’s devious laugh; his eyes dimmed for lack of his heart-brother’s kind smile).

And still.

His heart has been returned to him. Returned when he was lost forever, never to taste of honey and apples under his lips again. The breath shudders in Ethari’s chest, but he forces himself to open his hands once more and look upon faces he thought he would only see in dreams and memories until their details grew blurry with time. He wipes away the tears on his sleeve and focuses clear eyes upon the lives in his hands and chokes out something that could be a sob or a pathetic excuse for laughter because his husband’s face is still twisted in pain, as it must have been when he last drew breath; but there is such _defiance_ in his eyes. _Denial_. Unbreaking will and determination; the same that had once led him to spend _days_ hunting through the woods around Silvergrove for _just the right spot_ to spirit Ethari away to on their anniversary. And here it was, immortalized as his husband faced down vile black magic meant to imprison him forever. 

He allows Rayla to collect her parents from his hands, then brings Runaan up to press him over his heart, the way his husband used to press his ear over it as they lay in bed every night. Even if there is no way for him to hear its beat now, it soothes Ethari’s soul to offer him this comfort once more.

* * *

_So long thy pow'r hath blest me, sure it still_   
_Will lead me on_   
_O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till_   
_The night is gone._   
_And with the morn those angel faces smile,_   
_Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!_

* * *

There is an explosion of sound and light and _sensation_. It bursts upon his consciousness with no warning; and he feels himself gasp for breath, feels his heart pound under his breast, feels the _throbbing_ pain in his arm. And so much more; all rushing in and clamoring for his attention at once, drowning him in _everything_.

Runaan distantly wonders if he’s screaming.

He desperately hopes this is not another one of the dark mage’s _persuasions_.

A voice cuts through the cacophony and suddenly it is _silent_. Except not silent as he has come to know it; utterly devoid of sound to perceive or ears to hear it. And the _sensations_ persist. Cool, dry air rasps in his throat; a soft _something_ under his back.

_“Runaan, my heart.”_

A jolt runs down his spine and his eyes fly open.

(When had he closed them)?

_“Ethari?”_

A warm, callused hand caresses the point of his chin and suddenly his beloved is _there_. Lips quivering and eyes bright with tears and _aching_ with relief. Runaan feels his heart kick in his chest the way it always does when he sees his husband for the first time after a long assignment and it starts to sink in that _this isn’t a memory._ The hand that cups the curve of his jaw is real. He can feel how the mattress he’s lying on dips under his husband’s weight. Feels the bite of the wrap on his left arm digging into his flesh.

He tries to raise his hand to his husband’s face, but only manages a few inches. Even so, that too is proof that this is real. There was no movement in his prison. 

Relief hits him like a war hammer, and he wills his lips to form a smile because he kept his promise. He returned Ethari’s heart. Black eats at the corners of his vision and he goes willingly into unconsciousness. 

Ethari will be with him when he wakes up.

—

Runaan wakes again later in a room that is much quieter (and darker) then the one he first woke up in. Or perhaps it is the same room as before. He didn’t bother to look past his husband’s face. 

A puff of warm breath touches the skin of his cheek and he turns his head to the side to find said husband lying beside him in the bed, watching him with warm, brown, _wondering_ eyes; as if Runaan is an impossible dream suddenly turned reality. Considering all that has happened since he was captured, perhaps it’s not so far from the truth.

The corners of his husband’s lips twitch upwards when he notices Runaan has awakened, a warm and callused palm sliding across the plane of his stomach to curl around his side and pull him close. Soft lips press against the blade of Runann’s uninjured shoulder, Ethari’s eyes crinkling up with obvious joy at being able to share this with him once more.

Runaan is of the same mind, but his limbs feel like they’ve been filled with lead when he tries to reach out. Ethari reads him as well as he always has anyway, propping himself up slightly so he can reach Runaan’s lips with his own. Runaan tries to pour all of his relief and longing and sorrow-at-others’-sorrow into his touch. And once the initial frantic emotion filling his breast calms, he slips in the things that underpin it. Fondness, gratitude, wonder, loyalty, hope, _hunger_.

He somehow doubts that any kiss could ever express all of these things to _anyone_ , but Ethari always seems to _know_. Even so, Runaan wants to say it out loud. After so long trapped in silence the words are practically _boiling_ up and out of him.

“I love you. I missed you.” His voice rasps in his throat, rough and faint from disuse and sleep and exhaustion.

“And I the same,” Ethari whispers into his ear, “Your return is the greatest gift I have ever been granted.”

There are fingers in Runaan’s hair, entwined around the base of his horns, stroking with infinite gentleness over the broken stump of the left one. They trace around the edges of where his marriage bands used to sit around their bases; Ethari’s finely-crafted gifts torn from their rightful place by angry human hands who knows how many cycles of the moon ago. Runaan aches to have them back, to proudly bear the beautiful work of his husband for all to see once again. 

“I have them, my heart,” Ethari whispers against his lips, once again reading Runaan’s thoughts before he can voice them. “King Ezran brought them from Katolis. He was quite upset to learn they were taken from you.”

Runaan sighs in wordless gratitude for his former target, relaxing back into the pillows that smell like the nut-oil his husband uses on his hair. Already he can feel his eyelids drooping again, lulled by the soft bed and the touch of his husband and the lifted weight of a child’s death-

His eyes snap fully open once more and he turns his head sharply toward his left arm and it’s binding…

Which is gone. The skin is still not quite its normal healthy color, and the bruise around his bicep is impressive and _colorful_ , but the binding itself is missing.

And yet the king lives.

“How…”. The words stick in his throat, and Ethari is quick to soothe him with a gentle hand on his cheek. 

“The coin,” his husband breathes, and holds Runaan closer when a shudder runs up his spine at the mention of his cage. “The spell could only confine _living_ things.” A short huff of breath against the side of his neck. “I do not think the Dragon Queen ever expected to see quite so much of you, my heart.” Soft lips press to vulnerable skin once again, teasing and reassuring at the same time as Runaan slowly calms from his moment of panic. “Rest, Runaan. Your task is complete.”

 _Rest_. Runaan is _tired_. Down to his bones and the roots of his soul. Already his eyelids are reminding him of just how much they wish to be closed. The sheets are soft against his skin, his husband at his side with tender kisses and soothing touches. His task is completed. He is _free_.

He rests.

**Author's Note:**

> There's something about the story of these two that reminded me of Ned Rorem's 'Lead, Kindly Light.' I sang it many years ago when I was in college and just starting to figure out this whole liking boys business. 
> 
> It's important to understand that Ned Rorem, the composer, was a Quaker, and so here 'light' could be analogous to God or a more abstract concept of Spirit. A big part of Quakerism is seeking the guidance of the inner light, especially in challenging times. (Also endless Meetings for Worship with Attention to Business, but that's a whole other story). All this isn't exactly relevant to the story, but it shaped the interaction between it and my personal experience so I wanted to share it.
> 
> For those interested, here's a link to the recording I have in my library (the third stanza isn't actually in Rorem's setting, but I included it because it fit):  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVk5QHyxHlU


End file.
